


The Time It Took to Fall

by porcelainmaps



Series: "there’s no one i’d rather be dancing with right now" (maxwell x mc) [2]
Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: (he sees them kiss), Angst, F/M, Jealousy, Love Triangle, MC is the one that got away, Pining, it's not unrequited but maxwell fudged up his shot, maxwell's POV, slight voyeurism but nothing explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25811875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelainmaps/pseuds/porcelainmaps
Summary: When he sees the way that she glows around Drake, Maxwell can’t help but regret the chances he missed.A different, melancholy take on Drake’s birthday party scene in Book One, from Maxwell’s POV.
Relationships: Drake Walker & Main Character (The Royal Romance), Drake Walker/Main Character (The Royal Romance), Maxwell Beaumont & Main Character (The Royal Romance), Maxwell Beaumont/Main Character (The Royal Romance)
Series: "there’s no one i’d rather be dancing with right now" (maxwell x mc) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869931
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	The Time It Took to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, it's @diamondsaregold on Tumblr! I wrote this fic three years ago and decided to post it along with my other Choices fics on my AO3 account.
> 
> The story in set in Chapter 11 of The Royal Romance Book 1, during the exclusive diamond scene where you and the friends to go to a western-style bar to celebrate Drake's party. I incorporated quotes from Maxwell from that chapter as well from earlier chapters.
> 
> Title from the song “Cherry” by Luna Shadows, as the song was part of the inspiration for this fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this slice of angst with best boy and best MC (I love you too Drake)!

Here, Maxwell was supposed to be in his element.

Up ahead, a group of girls giggled in his direction. To his left, Hana and Liam sat with him at their small bar table, chatting amiably with each other. A hoard of guys stood amid flashing lights in the center of the dance floor, awkwardly busting out moves and laughing at each attempt.

He barely noticed any of them.

Usually, he’d be the life of the party. Making his friends laugh with his antics, or wooing the ladies and commanding the audience with the dance moves that no one (not even Bertrand, six years ago) could compare to.

Except tonight, all he could think about were the sway of her hips and the chime of infectious laughter, all colors of the vivid, smiling girl he couldn’t get his mind off of.

And, the stinging fact that it wasn’t him that she was with tonight.

Watching her move closer and closer to the man in the denim shirt, in their own corner of the dance floor—untouched by the rest of the world and his own watchful, longing gaze—Maxwell couldn’t help but notice, darkly, that this scene was all too familiar.

* * *

_“There’s no one I’d rather be dancing with right now,” she murmured. For past few minutes, she had been grazing her hands across his chest, standing closer to him for heartbeats longer than the waltz dictated, until his hands were sweating from the proximity._

_Her eyes were clear and bright, and he knew she was unaware of the not-so-innocent rush that surged through him at her touch and her words, when he was overwhelmed with the urge to pull her flush against her._

_He, on the other hand, was painfully aware of all the ways that she made him weak in the knees: when she shined a soft smile in his direction, or stepped out of the dressing room in a skin-tight gown, or when she sweetly called him “Max” during their late-night meetings (when all the castle was asleep except for them, and finally, he felt free to drown in her dark brown gaze. But only for those nights.). It was these moments that sent cracks rippling through his composure, tempted him to throw his resolve to the wind._

_So many times had he imagined giving in to burning desire. What it would feel like to press a kiss to the curve of her neck and run his hands along the lace of her bodice, until it was all strewn on the floor. To revel in the feeling of her breath mingling with his and the sound of her soft gasps. To become undone as her heat pulsed through his veins, and to feel nothing, nothing, but her._

_But here, in the ballroom, he was still Lord Beaumont—a man who kept careful watch of the piercing gaze of the nobles lurking about, and cowered under the glare from Bertrand he knew awaited him later that night. And Lord Beaumont could not succumb to temptation for even one tender moment._

_Maxwell willed himself to look away from her soft lips and the curl of her hair, the one that was practically calling to him to brush it gently away. Stiffly, he straightened his posture and held her at a distance._

_It was such a rigid response, and so unlike him, that he had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from apologizing (or confessing something more, something worse), when he saw her bottom lip begin to tremble. No matter how much it killed her, she needed to know that this could never work._

_No matter how much it killed him._

_“You should always be thinking of Liam,” he stated firmly, coldly. He winced at the hurt flashing through her eyes, but kept his face as blank as possible._

_Too soon, he pulled away to another partner. And another. And another. As he swayed with the new ladies, each becoming more and more faceless than the last, he ignored the pounding ache in his chest. He was doing the right thing, it was for the best, and there was no going back._

_That night, he didn’t see her again._

* * *

From across the opposite corner of the bar, Maxwell watched. He ignored the twinge in his stomach when Drake casually slung a shoulder around her shoulders. Pretended that his eyes didn’t linger on her lithe frame as the pair strolled over to the bar together.

“More champagne?” the bartender asked, wryly. After the fourth glass, he already knew the answer. Slowly, Maxwell sipped the clear, bubbling liquid. He barely registered the burn in his throat.

It was almost unbearable. As he watched Drake scoot his barstool closer and closer to hers—as if she was _blind_ to his advances, as if she was _stupid_ —and “accidentally” grazing his knees against her, he clenched his glass. Disdain, and something headier, heated like jealousy, simmered in his stomach. When she playfully punched Drake in the shoulder and he laughed, loud, Maxwell slammed his glass down, hard.

The bartender glared at him, and Hana and Liam jumped up, startled. “Sorry,” Maxwell muttered, wiping up the spilled liquid.

He should have been bothered by the fact that he didn’t feel apologetic at all. Truth was, he had been feeling further and further from himself with every passing week, every new lie. Tonight had simply added kindling to the growing flame—another instance of denying himself of what he truly wanted.

In the end, he should’ve saw it coming.

It all happened in slow motion. She leaned in close to Drake and said something, teasingly, before laughing softly to herself.

Unblinkingly, Drake stared. His eyes darted down to her dress, before hovering about on her face. Something passed over him, a flicker of doubt, then desire—a look that Maxwell saw mirrored in his own face, three weeks ago in her arms. He knew then that he was too late.

Drake gently caught her by the wrist and kissed her, long and slow.

It was as if cold water had seeped through his veins and into his stomach, mixing with the roaring burn of the champagne. He was on fire and frozen all at once, but still, he could not rip his eyes away from the intertwined pair.

She pulled away—Maxwell heard his breath come back in a rasp, heard _hers_ too—before he saw her running her tongue over her bottom lip, Drake’s cheeks darkening. Then she leaned in and pressed her lips to his again.

As Drake gripped her chin with his hand and the two drew closer to each other, the champagne sloshed over the glass and onto Maxwell’s shaking hand.

Next to him, Liam and Hana smiled. “Well, I’ll never,” muttered Liam with a grin. “I’m happy for him. And for her.”

“I was wondering why they both seemed so excited for this!” Hana said, laughing.

“And I thought I’d be the first to get a girlfriend in this whole mess!”

“Me too!”

They returned to their previous conversation as if nothing had happened—as if what had just transpired meant absolutely nothing. As if they were utterly blind to their friend sitting silently next to them, cold hands burning underneath the table with regret and agony.

Maxwell noticed, bitterly, that Hana and Liam didn’t check for his reaction. As if it wasn’t enough for him to be torn out of his place, his _running_ (he noted with a grim laugh, at how it all fit together so very well, between these terribly twisted parallel lines) in his feelings for her, he was also literally the man on the side.

Well, he had it coming. He supposed that he had become a much more skilled liar in the past few months—so skilled, in fact, that he had learned how to pretend around his best friends. After endless nights of whispering lies to himself, concocting a million tales of how he would run away and be happy without her, he had convinced himself it was all for the best.

But as he watched her rest her head on her shoulder (with both their backs to him), as a swell of bitterness rose in his throat, Maxwell knew that he was still no master of deception.

_Why didn’t he say yes?_

He downed his drink, and strode across the floor to the group of giggling girls.

No, he wasn’t thinking about the glint of her soft hair under the sunlight of the beach, the gentle dance of her pulling him closer, and him pushing her away. He wasn’t remembering how he waited for her to return to him every time. He wasn’t drowning in the emptiness that was swallowing him whole now, the realization that she we could finally leave him for good.

And what would she come back to? The thought was so ludicrous that he almost doubled over in laughter (or tears, he couldn’t tell).

When the title of Lord Beaumont crumbled down, he was nothing more than a nameless liar. Someone who too fragile, too uncertain to ever be worthy of her.

_It was for the best._

“Hey ladies.” For a moment, he was tempted to return to his corner of the bar, to drink himself into oblivion and drown in the memory of her eyes. Bright with hope and filled with images of _him_.

Instead, he pushed it aside and extended a hand to the nameless blonde in the center, ignoring the hollowness in his chest as he put on his best, practiced grin.

“Make room, make room! Let me show you some of these moves.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me @diamondsaregold on Tumblr! Thanks for reading. <3 Stay safe and stay well, everyone.


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